Start studying again that foreign language once knew and have since mostly forgotten

Tell people how you feel, even if you’re not sure how to articulate it

♦

Our dearest friends welcomed their son, their firstborn, into the world on Saturday. We met him and held him, talking quietly in a peaceful hospital room that overlooked the university and the mountains beyond while this little 6-pound bundle warmed my ribcage. His parents’ faces were alight with an exhausted kind of wonder. They were so relaxed, watching us carefully exchange their baby, and competent. They’ll parent him beautifully, and we are privileged to act as witnesses.

♦

“This then, I thought, as I looked round about me, is the representation of history. It requires a falsification of perspective. We, the survivors, see everything from above, see everything at once, and still we do not know how it was.” — The Rings of Saturn, W.G. Sebald

Dear Maddy and Sam came to London for the week, and then we took off for the Lake District for an absolutely stunning weekend. Turns out the northern part of the UK is not kidding around when it comes to outrageous beauty. We were tremendously lucky with the weather, too, because everyone had warned us that it would rain the entire time. Instead, we got this all weekend:

(We met several locals who told us, “This is the first sunshine we’ve seen in nine months.”)

We stayed in this charming (if mildewy) cottage in Kirkby-in-Furness, in a quiet and secluded hamlet at the southern edge of the Lake District:

On our first night, Sam (very expertly, considering that this was his first time driving in the UK) drove us all up the gorgeous/treacherous little roads to Kirkstone Pass, where we had a hearty supper at the Kirkstone Pass Inn, which is the second-highest pub (in terms of elevation) in the United Kingdom.

(Sparking so many geographical flashbacks to Iceland…)

As we descended, we stopped in Windermere to enjoy the sunset.

On Saturday, bright and hot, we took on the Catbells hike, which did not disappoint, with its 360-degree views of the mountains, lake, and surrounding loveliness.

After hiking down, we timed the ferry around the lake poorly and spent £8 on a five-minute ride, but then we got to walk around the lake, so it was not entirely a loss.

On the drive home, we hit the golden hour in this stunning valley and felt so delighted to be there, together. We rolled around in the grass, Maddy (mildly) terrorized some sheep, and we marveled at our good fortune.

Quite possibly my favorite photo from the entire weekend:

We said goodbye to Kirkby-in-Furness on Sunday morning by walking to the coast. Guion and Sam were nearly washed out to sea when the tide came in (and covered all of that strange, spongy grass you see below).

Guion read us this Heaney poem on the first night of our stay and it served as the perfect sketch of our general feeling about being in the Lake District (even if it is about Ireland).

Postscript
Seamus Heaney

And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you’ll park and capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.

We went up in the mountains this weekend to celebrate non-brother-Sam’s birthday. A really lovely, much-needed time away with dear friends.

♦

We also sit around and talk about Paris and Beirut and ISIS and the elections and fear and realize: We have no theoretical solutions. We are at a loss. (To solve the human condition?)

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In light of this, Paul gave a helluva sermon yesterday, All Is Forgiven, which I recommend heartily. He speaks about the deeply, undeniably offensive nature of Christianity.

♦

“Conservatives pride themselves on resisting change, which is as it should be. But intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism, as when conservatives simply decline to look up from dogma because the effort to raise their heads and reconsider is too great.” — William F. Buckley

♦

Pyrrha doesn’t care about any of this. She just wants to know who put her on a diet.

As some of you may know, I have the good fortune to be married a very creatively gifted man. Guion is the singer/songwriter for a band called Nettles, and they are seriously good. Describing Nettles is a difficult endeavor, but I like to think of it as the music that floats over a misty swamp surrounded by Spanish moss-laden trees. Or the sounds that rise up from a garden in the cycle of growth and decay. Or the harmony elicited by a falling star. It’s a mystical Charlottesville folk band, you know? These kinds of things come up.

Over the past four years, Nettles has been in the process of making their first album. Now, they need your help to finish it. Nettles has a Kickstarter campaign to raise $5,500 in 25 days. Would you consider helping them out? Every little bit counts.

At the beginning of this week, I took a mini-vacation to D.C. to stay with Kelsey and Alex, visit with Mom, and see Grace off for her summer in India and Nepal.

Alex and Kelsey’s apartment is this peaceful, minimalistic oasis in the middle of the city. I was delighted to finally be able to see it!

I had most of Monday to myself, so I walked to the National Mall,

and spent the majority of my afternoon in the National Gallery (west building). Delighted to see so many paintings I had only seen before in books.

I particularly enjoyed: the exhibit on Rodin’s sculptures, the pre-Raphaelite exhibit, Van Gogh, and noting how very famous paintings are often nonchalantly placed in a strange corner of the room.

On Tuesday, Mom and I got to spend the morning at the U.S. Botanic Gardens, which was delightful, as I now share her great love of plants.

We killed time here while Grace fearlessly navigated the Metro to Georgetown to apply for her visa, and then we met up again and had the famously delicious lunch at the Native American museum.

More thoughts/highlights:

The quiet car on the train! The best invention. Also, the ride from here to D.C. is really beautiful. I caught up on my New Yorkers and finished The Gospel According to Woman (Karen Armstrong).

Dinner with Eric, Cristina, Emily, and Brian on the night I got in. So fun and lively!

Dinner with Patrick, shortly after Mom and Grace arrived. Just adding to the list of family time, and surreptitiously celebrating his birthday.

I don’t think I could make it in D.C., but I’m glad that Kelsey and Alex aren’t very far away, and I love their sweet, streamlined lifestyle there. Visiting their apartment felt a bit like visiting an upscale resort (the rooftop pool! You cannot even imagine this pool/deck area). Love those two so very much; they are perfect hosts.

And now I am looking forward to seeing (almost) everyone again in June, for the family excursion to Hatteras! It cannot come too quickly.

This past weekend, Kathryn and I went to visit Catherine and her sweet new baby, Auden.

We had such a lovely visit and were so excited to finally meet the little nugget! It’s still surreal to see Catherine as a mom, this dear friend from years past, with whom I used to roll around in the grass with on the quad and steal food from the dining hall. And now here she is, a graceful, competent mother.

As you can see, Auden is a complete doll. Can’t wait to see them all again soon!

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Last night, we had the fabulous Meredith Perdue, Michael Cain, and Orvis over for dinner. Meredith, as you may recall, was our super-gifted wedding photographer, and we are HUGE fans. Dinner conversation was lively and fun, and the dogs were full of adorable antics.

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After being ruined for all fiction by Infinite Jest, I have finally found my reading stride again, happily resurrected by the cheering power of Anna Karenina. It has been years since I read it, and I am enjoying Pevear and Volokhonsky’s translation immensely. So funny, so witty, so readable! Preliminary thoughts: Vronsky is not as villainous as I remembered him, at least not yet. Tolstoy can write women fairly and completely, without the masculine censure that so often creeps into 19th-century narratives by male authors (lookin’ at you, Dickens). Anna is just so human and real. Anyone who judges her should take a good, hard look at themselves first.

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Looking forward to a weekend at home to do chores, acquire houseplants, and walk the dog. Pleasant sigh.

… the books we need are the kind that act upon us like a misfortune, that make us suffer like the death of someone we love more than ourselves, that make us feel as though we were on the verge of suicide, or lost in a forest remote from all human habitation — a book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us.

— from a letter of Franz Kafka to Oskar Pollak

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Frightening and lovely!

Thinking about: how I really need to get serious about training the dog, all-black outfits, how much I dislike the word “outfit,” courgettes, lemonade, North Korea, if I will ever read fiction again, mantis shrimp, and the farmhouse smell and feel of our house (hovel) in the summer. (I am calling it summer now, since we hit 90°F this past week.)

Looking forward to this weekend: Kathryn is coming to stay with us, and then we’ll be traveling to see Catherine, Russ, Ava, and new baby Auden!